Zahra, aged 3, and Hawra, just a few months old were the only survivors of a missile strike in Baghdad in 2003. Their parents and their five siblings all died. Unable to have children herself, Hala Jaber, an award-winning foreign correspondent, was determined to do all she could to help them. Sent to Iraq by the Sunday Times to cover the war, the last thing she expected was to find herself trying to save two little girls who had lost everything. But what happened next tells us far more about that conflict than any news bulletin ever could. Moreover, as a Lebanese and a Muslim, but the employee of a London paper, Hala is in the privileged position of being able to straddle two very different worlds and explain one to the other.

Beautifully written, compelling and deeply moving, The Flying Carpet to Baghdad affords a genuinely fresh insight into the Iraq war and its terrible human cost.